Does your 7 year old have good social skills? Can they make conversation?

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Ds1 is 7. He is lovely, kind and sensitive and bright, doing well at school. His teachers comment that he is polite and sensible. However I have noticed that recently sometimes in social situations he can be awkward and a bit odd. For example, we went to see Santa and his 5 yo brother was able to have a fairly sensible and coherent conversation with Santa whereas ds1 gave silly monosyllabic answers. Similarly I took
him to a concert at my school (I am a secondary teacher) which he has been to in the past and enjoyed, and noticed how odd he was when my colleagues were chatting to him eg one asked his name and he said "me" instead of his actual name . I have spoken to him about it and he says it is because he is shy but I have tried to explain that I can come across as rude and bad manners and that he needs to be polite when making conversation. It seems to have been a fairly recent development and not sure how to tackle it.....does anyone have any advice?

Anyone??

I have an 8 and 6 year old,and neither would with someone they didn't know straight off.

Yes, he could strike up a conversation with anyone and is very sociable but this gets him into trouble at school as he is easily distracted and never shuts up 😂! I was like your DS, pretty shy around strangers until I was in my teens. I think I eventually just started to have more confidence in myself and felt less nervous around new people. I was always worried I would make a fool of myself!

DD is chatty with people she knows, she is an only child so has done lots of socialising with adults. When she was younger she was never shy with grown ups, possibly too much the other way ah well, I made friends with lots of random strangers, some of which I still have

But sometimes now she will hide behind me and peek out and answer no questions when meeting new adults or sometimes even ones she knows fairly well. I think some is learned behaviour from classmates, some is just her being more self aware and so more likely to feel embarrassment.

No doubt she will change again as she grows and matures, so I'm not concerned. I do remind her that not answering is rude, and encourage her to come out and speak, but I was painfully shy as a child and can remember the absolute horror and humiliation of being forced out of my shell, I can't do that to her.

It will pass.

I have a 7 and 5 year old too and mine sound just like yours. 7 year old sometimes won’t speak at all when people ask her questions, if we’re lucky she will say a couple of words but definitely no fluid conversation. She never shuts up at home of course. No idea how to improve it, I’m assuming it’s something they’ll grow out of eventually. I was a shy child so I do sympathise with her but I find it a bit annoying sometimes!

When I was a kid I was like that, I am a shy type of kid and is not sufficient into socializing but in class, I was able to handle it. As I grow up things changes maturity level changes so there is a greater chance of probability together with his age that your kid will level up in terms of maturity.

He's shy. Try not to make a big issue out of it, and don't tell him off for his mistakes, as I'm sure he's already aware of them and feels bad enough. Constantly pulling him up in his social skills will only make him even more self-conscious and shy. Keep modelling good social skills for him. Sometimes practicing what to say in advance of a situation can help, eg. If he's going to visit santa you can run through some of things santa might ask him and you can together come up what good responses might be.

I've a son like this too, his social skills are definitely behind his brothers and he is definitely worse in a group. Have stepped up play dates to hope it makes this better.